


To crash and burn

by UpInOrbit



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Abduction, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Fringe Fusion, Angst, Childhood Friends, Fringe inspired, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Science Fiction, Tags to be added, The violence is not that graphic but it's there, Violence, friends to strangers, lowkey horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23755909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpInOrbit/pseuds/UpInOrbit
Summary: They say the smallest towns hide the darkest secrets.Ten years ago, Hendery left his home in the middle of the night, like a thief, and never once looked back. Now, he’s forced to return to the same place he swore never to set foot on again. A dead body and a friend gone missing is what awaits for him there.They say the smallest towns hide the darkest secrets. Maybe its time to find out the truth.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Wong Kun Hang | Hendery
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. You might not know this, but this is a story I've been aching to write for the past year. I came up with it over a year ago and I was planning on posting it much sooner but things happen, and I finally couldn't do it, until now! This one has been only in my head for so long that I'm maybe as nervous as I was when I posted my first fic so I guess it's fitting it gets published today, my second anniversary as a fic writer!  
> I was planning on writing it completely before writing it but I thought, given the day it is today, and the situation in which we are, that it would be nice to gift it to you a little early! That said, I know this story won't be for everyone. It's a very niche and specific story, as it's kind of a crossover??? with my favourite tv show, Fringe, so I've gotten inspiration and things from it. It's a crime story so, on top of being a niche story, people die and go missing and it can be a little unsettling, I guess, but if you decide to give it a go despite this, I really hope you'll enjoy it!  
> This said, I'll leave you to it <33

The Sun was setting, the light that came through the window painting the walls in golden and amber hues, so bright it was almost blinding.

The man walked cautiously around the room, his eyes scanning everything, ears straining to hear the slightest of sounds. He knew he should be alone for the time being, had timed it carefully. If he was caught, it would be the end, and he was close, so close he could almost touch it. He didn't have the complete picture, not yet, but he could feel it in his gut, taste it in the stale air: he would leave that place with the answers he was seeking. 

Slowly, he walked around the room, approaching the door opposite to him. The long corridor leading to it was covered in shelves that took up all the surface available. Resting on them, there were tiny chunks of varying colours, from red to yellow, even blue. 

He grabbed one of them, bringing it up for closer inspection. It was beautiful, he guessed. The colours were vibrant, almost sparkling, even under the corridor’s dim light. They swirled towards the centre, where they were the darkest, almost as if they tried to hide the insect inside. Said insect was perfect, looking like it was just about to move and fly away, a single moment suspended in time. Still, something in it filled him with dread. 

He left it in the exact same place from which he had picked it up, eager to shake the lingering feeling it had left him. 

Finally, he reached the door at the end of the corridor. It was the only room he had yet to inspect, and he took a deep breath to soothe his nerves. There had been nothing in the others but this one…

Opening his eyes, he grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. 

The first thing he noticed when he walked in were the shelves, for they, too, covered the walls there. 

It was almost suffocating, if he was to be honest. They made him feel like the room was closing in around in, making it appear narrower than it truly was, the small window to his left side doing nothing to dispel the feeling. When he stepped into the room, he had to dodge to avoid hitting his head on one of the shelves, it's protruding edges almost poking his eye.

Frowning, he let his eyes roam over the shelves, taking in the dozens of small objects that littered them. For some reason, they made him feel uncomfortable, and so he turned his back to them with a shudder. However, what he found there made him take a step back, his hands flying to cover his mouth and stifle the shout that followed.

All his life, he had been a detective. It was in his blood, it sang to him, but, not for the first time, he wished he had chosen another path, one that wouldn’t let him to gruesome discoveries such as the ones he had just made. For all that he had feared to find inside that room, nothing could compare to what was actually there. He took a step closer, finding himself almost unable to wrap his mind about what he was seeing. 

His fingers shook as he tried to fish his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t know what he was planning on doing, his brain still trying to comprehend what he was seeing, when he heard the front door being unlocked.

Frozen, he almost dropped his phone. His heart beating loudly in his chest, he felt his throat turning dry, as if he had run a marathon.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I promise I will be back,” he continued as he turned away, not waiting for a reply he knew he wouldn’t receive.

Tiptoeing closer to the door, he prayed to whoever might be listening to lend him some luck and allow him to leave the building before the owner noticed his intrusion. 

He had never been a lucky guy. That day was no exception.

Just as he was nearing the far end of the corridor, a lone figure appeared in the middle of the threshold. Not for the first time, he wished he had chosen to become a cop. Maybe then he’d be armed, have a partner to look out for him as he faced the monster he had been pursuing, instead of being alone in the face of danger.

There was surprise mixed with an instant of fear in the other’s face before both of those disappeared, dark eyes looking at him almost pityingly as he stood frozen in the corridor. Those eyes, they were clear, much more than he had thought they would, a spark of terrifying intelligence shining in them and, for the first time in almost a decade, the detective felt the kiss of true fear on his lips, branding him, owning him.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the man whispered, and so the detective turned around and run.

He threw himself into the room he had just left, banging the door close behind him as his heart beat wildly inside of his chest, rattling so loudly he thought it was about to break free from its cavity, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. He didn’t understand his own reaction, the visceral need that had taken over him and made him run away, lock himself up inside the room but then he raised his head and found open eyes looking back at him, all light gone from them, no whisper of life inside, and he knew.

There was something about the man standing at the other side of the door, something that told him that, even if he had been able to overpower them, he would have never made it to the door, not whole in the ways that matter.

Running his hands through his hair, he tried to calm himself down and think of a way to leave that place unharmed. He had unlocked his phone, fingers ready to dial the number of someone, anyone, to get him out of there when he heard it, a metallic sound coming from above him.

His head snapped to inspect the ceiling, frantically searching for the noise’s source. It seemed it came from the grille located just above the door. That wasn’t what froze the blood in his veins, though. It was the thick, white smoke that hissed as it slowly escaped through it, rising towards the ceiling and covering the whole room.

He didn’t know what that was, but he knew he didn’t want to experience its effects, so he covered his mouth and nose with his arm and threw himself at the door, desperation fueling his movements. The door rattled under him but it held, probably because someone was trying to keep it that way, trying to keep him inside.

He pushed and pushed, as hard as he could, with so much force his bones groaned under the impact and he thought he might break something, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the door to give not even an inch.

Around him, the gas continued to expand, making its slow trek towards him and he could feel it filling his lungs, making him cough with so much virulence he fell to the floor. The phone slipped through his fingers as he dropped it, the screen cracking as it reached the floor. He extended his arm, trying to get it back, but his vision started turning black and his head spun due to the lack of air.

With a slight creak, the door to the room opened wide, and heavy boots entered his field of vision, thin tongues of white mist licking the soles as they stepped on his phone, crushing it to tiny, useless pieces.

A black gas mask staring at him from above, stark against the amber sky, was the last thing he saw before the white smoke clung to him and he disappeared under it, turning blind, deaf and mute.

***

Twigs snapped under Ten’s boots as he approached the cluster of trees in front of him. The sky above them was dark, heavy clouds covering it in its entirety and hiding the stars from the view. Only the lanterns held by the policemen around him breached the darkness but, despite being in the middle of a swarm of people, Ten felt frozen inside.

“Has anyone seen it?” He asked to the agent standing beside him.

“Just the guy who found it. Him. The guy who found the corpse,” was the subdued reply.

Ten nodded.

“Make sure it stays that way, we don’t want the panic to spread. When did they find him?”

Careful so as to not disturb the sheet covering the body lying on the ground, he crouched down, feeling a wave of pity and nausea threatening to choke him. Nothing had ever happened in the town ever since he became a cop but lately… The more he thought about it, the more it seemed someone had placed a curse of them.

Nothing else could explain the horror of what had happened to the dead man lying in front of him.

“A couple of hours ago,” the cop, Hyejoo, answered. Her voice sounded strangled, and she looked paler than usual, and Ten knew he felt as bad as he did, if not even worse. “The forensics team still don’t know when he died but they think he died because of…,” Hyejoo’s voice became quieter with every word that left her lips, before turning completely mute.

Ten turned around to look at her, and he caught her leaving the scene, a little green in the face, her hand covering her mouth. She wasn’t the only one. Ten winced in sympathy. Hyejoo was a good cop, a tough one, but despite how hardened one may be, the corpse lying on the ground was too much, no matter how experienced the cop.

The truth was, Ten doubted many people had come across something as horrifying as what they were looking at just then.

It was the hair that gave him away. Ten had spoken to the man before, but, if it hadn’t been for the dyed hair, a blond so light it was almost white, he wouldn’t have known who it was, not when they couldn’t even see his face, completely erased as it was. They had needed to read his card, tucked safely inside the wallet he carried around in his back pocket, to know who it was for sure.

_Jackson Wang, Private Investigator_ , it read.

“I’m sorry,” Hyejoo whispered as she came back, but Ten shook his head.

“Don’t apologize, Hyejoo, never for this,” he replied. Hyejoo nodded, her lips trembling slightly.

“What are we going to do?” She asked, her eyes resolutely staring ahead of her. “This is— This is too much for us, sheriff.”

Ten sighed, running his hand through his hair.

“I know,” he replied. “I’ll call the city as soon as we're back at the precinct. There’s no way we can do this without help,” the admission, no matter how true, left a bitter taste in his mouth. When had things gone so wrong?

“Do you need me for anything else?” Hyejoo asked, her words quiet.

“No, Hyejoo, don’t worry. I can take it from here,” his words had barely left his lips by the time Hyejoo was gone. 

Ten couldn’t hold it against her. If he could, he would have left too, never to look back. That wasn’t who he was, though, he _had_ to be there.

“I guess Sicheng was right,” he muttered to himself, staring sadly at the unmoving corpse under the sheet. “Kun didn’t leave him, not willingly.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small bday gift, from me to you. I hope you'll enjoy it <3

_STRANGER MURDER IN WAYV FALLS_

_Two nights away a body was found by a man returning from work. The body, identified as Jackson Wang (32), private investigator, had been dumped on the side of the road, and it is said to have been there for hours prior to the discovery._

_Not much is known as of now other than the supposedly strange circumstances of his passing,which is currently being treated as a murder, but it is said Wang was in WayV falls after one of the residents contacted him, and the police are considering his death being tied to the case he was working on._

_Due to the lack of leads in the investigation, it has been reported the local policemen have contacted the city in order to get help so as to clarify Wang’s alleged murder._

The grainy picture that accompanied the small article stared at Hendery from the newspaper. It depicted a young man, with expressive dark eyes, who had looked at the camera with suspicion, though a spark of mirth shone, half-hidden, in his gaze. It didn’t seem fitting he had ended up dumped on the side of the road, like he was nothing but then again, it never did. 

Hendery threw the newspaper on the car seat beside him. It fell on top of the folders precariously stacked there. It was pointless to try and understand _why_. If Hendery’s line of work had taught him anything at all, it was that people rarely got the ending they deserved, and even less so those who were good. And from what little Hendery had on him, Jackson Wang seemed one of the best.

That was why he was there, however, back in a town he had sworn to never set a foot in again. To try and make sense of what had happened to Jackson. Only something like a murder, and only one like Jackson’s, one that would puzzle most of the ordinary cops, would have been enough to bring Hendery back to WayV falls. Because, for better or worse, Hendery was no ordinary cop.

Getting down from his rent car, Hendery closed the door behind him. His hands lingered on the car’s handle and he stared at his own reflection on the window for a moment. The face that looked back at him since worse for wear, like it had aged a couple years in the hours that had passed since he had been told about the case.

_“There’s a new case,” Lucas had told him as he had set foot in his office. “One of ours and one that has all the bosses on edge.”_

_Normally, that would interest Hendery, but there had been something in Lucas’ voice that had him pausing by the door, suddenly cautious._

_“What is it?”_

_Silently, Lucas handed him a file and Hendery sat in front of him to scan through it. He read the name at the same time Lucas chose to speak._

_“It’s in WayV falls,” the concern in Lucas’ voice was unmistakable. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, there are plenty of agents who could take your place.”_

_Hendery looked at him, face carefully blank._

_“You think I can’t do this?”_

_“Your words, not mine.” Hendery arched an eyebrow, holding Lucas’ intense gaze until his friend sighed. “I think you’ve spent the past decade running, Hendery. Maybe this is your chance to stop.”_

Shaking his head, he pushed those thoughts away and focused on the house in front of him. The white paint was peeling off in some places and it looked like it had seen better times, but, despite that, it also looked lived in, cared for. Lips curving into a slight smile, Hendery hopped on the porch, ignoring the small steps that lead to it.

Breathing in deeply, he rasped his knuckles on the door and waited.

Not receiving an answer, Hendery thought maybe the occupant was out, but as he was about to get his phone from his pocket, he heard the telltale sound of steps coming down the corridor. The old wooden door wasn’t thick enough to hide the surprised gasp of the person inside as they looked through the peephole, and Hendery smiled.

“Surprise!” He exclaimed with a bright grin as he opened his arms.

The woman who had just opened the door had a delicate face framed by a hair that was more grey than black, and her eyes were wet with tears as she walked towards Hendery’s embrace, wrapping her arms around Hendery’s torso.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming!” The woman said against Hendery’s chest, her voice muffled by his clothes. She sounded indignant, but he could tell by the way she clung to him there wasn’t any real anger in her.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “I just wanted to surprise you!”

“Consider me surprised, my son,” his mother said softly, taking a step away.

She lifted her hands to cradle his face and Hendery let her do, knowing she wanted to make sure he was fine. It had been a long time since the last time they saw each other, and he wasn’t about to stop her, not when he had missed her as much as she had missed him.

If the years they had spent apart had seen Hendery grow into the man he was right then, it had painted his mother’s hair in hues of white and grey, wrinkles covering her skin that spoke of her age, and, thankfully, of a life spent smiling. She seemed smaller, frailer than before, an impression accentuated by her small stature, the crown of her head coming just up to Hendery’s mid-chest, but he knew there was more strength in her that he could ever imagine.

Still looking as if she didn’t believe what her eyes were seeing, his mother pulled him inside, closing the door behind him.

“If you had told me you were coming, I would have prepared your room!” She insisted, as she pulled him along down the corridor and into the living room.

Stepping into it was quite the impression, as he hadn’t been there in a decade. It brought him back to his childhood, to the days he’d spent lounging on the couch as his mother nagged over him. It made his heart miss a step and he felt his throat closing up.

“Hendery…?” His mother asked him, worry written on the lines of her face.

Hendery hugged her once more, a shaky smile on his lips.

“It feels good to be back,” he whispered, and his mother hugged him back as fiercely. “I know I should have given you a heads up, but I wanted to surprise you,” he replied, dropping his arms and sitting on the old couch, his mother sitting beside him. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not going to be staying here these days,” he continued.

He had braced himself for the disappointment he knew would show on his mother’s face, but it still hurt, to see the light bleeding out from her eyes, knowing it was him who had done that.

“You’re here because of what happened to that poor man, aren’t you?” His mother asked, her voice sounding softer, sadder, than it did before. Hendery pressed his lips together and nodded. “I know it is your job, but I wish you did something less dangerous. I’ve heard it was a horrible death,” she half-whispered.

“I know. I’m sorry,” was his succinct reply. 

He wished there was something else he could tell his mother, but that was one conversation they had multiple times. That job, it was all Hendery wanted to do. He wouldn’t say it was a happy job, quite the opposite, it was probably one of the most horrible ones he could have chosen, but he enjoyed it, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, give it up. His mother understood that, most of the time.

“I’m sorry it has taken a murder for me to come back,” he whispered past the lump in his throat. His mother shook her head.

“Don’t apologize for that, Hendery, you know I understand why you’ve done it, and I’m not mad about it. Just promise me you will take care,” she demanded, extending her hands towards him over the table.

Hendery took one of her smaller hands between his and smiled. 

“That I can do,” he promised, brushing his lips against his mother’s cheek. “I wish I could stay here, but I think it’ll be best if I stay at a hotel these days, just in case,” he said. Then, he smiled brightly, “I’m not supposed to go to the precinct until tomorrow, however, so I’m free to stay and have dinner with you,” he added. 

He didn’t say he had driven faster than he probably should, just to make sure he’d make it in time to have dinner with his mother, but he didn’t have to. 

“You don’t know just how happy that makes me,” his mother replied. “Does anyone else know you’re here? Do they know it was you who was coming?” Hendery averted his eyes and his mother sighed, but she intertwined her fingers with his and squeezed slightly. “Hendery…”

“I know, I know, but they’ll know soon enough,” he replied with a shrug.

“What are you planning on doing?” She asked, her voice kinder than Hendery probably deserved.

“My job,” he simply replied and if his mother saw the idea he was toying with written on his face, she said nothing, just sighed with a small smile to herself.

***

“Some things never change,” Hendery muttered to himself as he took in the building he was standing in front of.

Around him, things were as he remembered them, albeit a little different. Some buildings and shops remained the same, and the trees looked like they had been standing there for decades, but there were subtle changes, changes that reminded him that, no matter how familiar it all felt, WayV falls had changed as much as Hendery had: different faces and different businesses for a different town. The papers plastered to the buildings were yet another reminder of that fact, the old mayor never one to accept them, not when he wouldn’t even allow children to play on the streets. 

A new town for a new era, he guessed.

The police station, however, hadn’t changed in all the years he had been away. Standing in the middle of the town’s square, it was an old building, always looking like it was on the verge of collapsing, the bricks that kept it upright a small earth tremor from crumbling to dust. Cops kept going through its door, both in and out, all of them too busy to even glance at Hendery.

That wasn’t the case with the rest of the town’s people, though. Even if it was early in the morning, and he had been there for less than five minutes, Hendery could already feel the lingering stares people gave him. It had just been pure curiosity at first, but he could see it in their faces it was more than just that then. Furrowed brows and scrunched noses, they were staring at Hendery with the expression one had when trying to recall a particularly slippery dream, one that lingers at the edges of your consciousness, just out of reach.

It was just a matter of time before someone remembered the long lost Huang Guanheng, Hendery, and dared approach him so it was time for him to get going. Pushing himself off the car he was leaning against, he walked towards the precinct’s door, ignoring the questioning stares thrown his way.

The inside of the building was incredibly busy with cops, much more than Hendery had expected for a town the size of WayV falls, where everyone knew each other and the population had barely varied in the last thirty years. Wang’s presence and murder must have altered the equilibrium of a town whose biggest excitement must come from the occasional brawl fights, he guessed.

That was not important right then, however, and so Hendery pushed those thoughts away, embracing his most professional side as he strode towards the receptionist. The one behind the counter, a scrawny boy who couldn’t be much older than twenty, blanched as he saw him approach.

“Hello,” he managed to say. “How may I help you?”

“I’m here looking for the sheriff,” Hendery replied, smiling softly at the boy, who seemed much more nervous than he should.

“Eh, what for? What brings you here?” The boy asked, stammering slightly.

Hendery reached for his jacket’s inner pocket, taking out his badge. It gleamed under the fluorescent lights of the precinct, and the sight of it made the boy lose what little colour he had left on his face.

“I’m agent Huang Guanheng, from the Fringe division. I have been called in to help in the Wang case,” he started explaining, but as he spoke, the receptionist’s eyes shifted to something behind Hendery and so he stopped speaking, puzzled.

He was about to ask what was going on when he heard it.

“Hendery?” At the sound of his name Hendery turned around, to find a man staring at him, eyes wide, his skin as pale as if he had seen a ghost. 

His voice, barely above a whisper, seemed to carry all over the precinct and cops bearing shocked expression turned on their heels to stare at Hendery, plain disbelief in their faces. Silence settled around them, as everyone waited to see what would happen next, like they expected Hendery to disappear into thin air.

Curving his lips into his most amicable smile, Hendery dipped his head in acknowledgement before replying.

“Hello, Ten.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! I don't know how often I'll be updating this but I'd say not to expect it to be too often. While I'm not going to drop it, at all, I've been wanting to write this for a very long time and I want to give it the best of my abilities, so it may take me a little longer to update, in case there was anyone wondering.  
> I really hope you enjoyed it!  
> Comments and kudos warm my heart <33
> 
> [To crush and burn playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7EhxNG4t7h2RMXOEuJLe7O) || [tw](https://twitter.com/monstaruniverse) || [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Val_99)
> 
> \- Val


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this comes 5 months late. I meant to update earlier but life happened and well, I wasn't able to, but I wanted to finish this one before 2021, so here I come. I hope I can give you the next chapter soon! And I hope you like this one.  
> BEFORE YOU READ IT THOUGH: There is something that I'm not sure if it's quite body horror but might as well be so if you want to be safe, skip from "why Ten had requested assistance from the FBI and why he’d kept the case under wraps" and read back after "when did he die"

The door to Ten’s office closed behind them, isolating them from the rest of the world. It felt as if they were the last people standing, with how silent it was, though Hendery didn’t let himself be fooled by that, and neither did Ten, not when they had felt the eyes of every cop in the vicinity glued to them. The tension in the air was still palpable, almost as solid as the walls that surrounded them, the silence so absolute it felt as if the precinct itself was straining to hear their conversation. 

It wasn’t until they could hear the echoes of quiet conversations and the shuffling of papers resuming outside the office that Ten turned to look at him, eyes hard and lips pressed into a thin line. The shock and surprise had been completely whipped off his face, his expression carefully blank.

“What are you doing here?” Ten asked, his words probably a tad louder, a little bit harsher, than he had intended.

“I’m here on behalf of the Fringe division,” Hendery showed him the badge once more, before pocketing it away. “You requested our help with the Wang case.”

“I did? When? I don’t even know what the Fringe division is,” Ten replied with a frown, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“You did,” Hendery confirmed, mimicking Ten’s posture. “When you asked for help from the higher ups.”

“I asked for help from the city, not from whatever you guys are,” Ten’s frown deepened.

“We’re the FBI, Sheriff. We’re the branch that specializes on these type of cases. The cop you contacted with called us as soon as he saw the details, and here we are.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Ten said, his voice deepening into almost a growl. Hendery arched his eyebrows, surprised by Ten’s tone. “Don’t do that, don’t call me that.”

“And what else am I supposed to call you, if not that?”

“What about my name, Hendery?” Ten replied, his eyes shining with something akin to challenge. Hendery crossed his arms behind his back.

“I was trying to be professional,” Hendery spoke slowly, clearly enunciating the last word. 

A part of him knew it was childish, and he hated it, but even if he had thought he was ready to come back, standing in front of Ten forced him to face things he had refused to acknowledge for years, thoughts and memories he had shelved away in a dusty corner of his mind and that were suddenly coming back, an unstoppable avalanche that threatened to drag him under.

“Professional?” Ten repeated, disbelief dripping from his tone. “Since when? There’s no one who cared less about that than you.”

“Was,” Hendery said and Ten furrowed his brows, clearly confused. Hendery leaned forward. “Was. There _was_ no one who cared less about that than me. You don’t know me, Ten.”

“And whose fault is it? You have been gone for literal years,” Ten lashed out through gritted teeth.

“You, of all people, should not be the one asking that,” Hendery hissed and he saw the light in Ten’s expression fracturing into a thousand splintered pieces, an instant before smoothing his expression into something neutral, no trace from their conversation on his face, but it was too late. 

Hendery had seen it, the small step back Ten had unconsciously taken, the hurt as Hendery’s blows had found their target. It should have probably made him feel bad, but it didn’t, and he didn’t feel the need to apologize either. Maybe he wasn’t as ready to come back as he had thought, but he didn’t allowed that thought to bloom.

Inhaling slowly, Hendery closed his eyes and forced himself to relax.

“All that is in the past now,” he heard himself say. He opened his eyes and stared at Ten, whose expression, dark and guarded, was a mirror of his own, that he was sure of. “I’m here because you have a body lying in the morgue that seems like one of mine. I’m here to help you, if you will allow me. If you’re not comfortable with me being here, you can ask for a replacement,” it wouldn’t be as easy as that, but Ten didn’t need to know it. 

Patiently, Hendery waited in silence as Ten’s eyes scanned his face. Finally, Ten nodded, the slightest dip of his chin and he gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk. He waited until Hendery was sat down before pulling his own out and sit on it too.

“What do you mean exactly with ‘one of mine’, what type of cases does your division investigate?” Ten asked, crossing his hands over the desk.

“Cases just like yours. Cases that are… Strange,” Hendery replied. That was always the trickiest part of that question for him, how to convey with words the horror of the things he investigated, and how to make others realize they were more than isolate cases. “Things that are beyond reason,” he shook his head. “I guess the best explanation I can offer you is that, the body you have in the morgue? Jackson Wang is not the first one to die in such strange circumstances, and I doubt he’ll be the last. Those are the cases we take care of.”

Ten nodded slightly, as if he understood. He didn’t, not really. 

Not when, sometimes, even Hendery, had a hard time wrapping his head over the things they stumbled upon. They were things that fit better inside a science fiction novel or a creepy TV show, rather than the real life but, sadly, that was Hendery’s reality and, just then, it had also become Ten’s.

“So whenever there’s a case like this, they just call you guys?”

Hendery dipped his chin.

“Basically? Yes. As soon as it shows up on our radar, we show up to look into it and see if it’s one of ours.”

“Have you seen a murder like this one before?”

“Not personally, and not that I recall off, but I’ll send the details to my people, maybe there’s something similar in our database,” he replied and when Ten nodded, he took that as an invitation to change the topic. “Now, tell me about this case. Who found the body and when?”

“Wang Yibo,” Ten answered, leaning back in his chair. “He was coming back home from a late dinner with his job colleagues when he saw something strange lying among the woods that surround the road. He couldn’t see it clearly but thought that it might have been a person so he stepped down from his car and found the body. He called us immediately.”

“Why did he think it was a person?” Hendery asked. “People don’t tend to think that, specially when they can’t see it well enough.”

“Yeah, but the town’s been on edge these past few months and when he saw it, he thought our worst fears had come true,” Ten must have read Hendery’s confusion on his face for he stopped speaking and straightened up, his expression darkening. “Wait, you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“What Wang was doing here.”

“I only know what was on the file you gave us, which wasn’t much,” Hendery replied, shaking his head slightly. “Why? What brought him here?”

“Sicheng called him.”

“Sicheng? Why would Sicheng need a private investigator?”

“Kun is missing.”

Ten’s words were like a blow to the stomach and Hendery found himself struggling to breathe for a second. He hadn’t seen Kun or Sicheng ever since he left town but the knowledge of his old friend having gone missing was enough for him to feel like he was being torn to pieces, his pain a twin to Ten’s.

“Kun is missing? What happened!?”

“We don’t know,” Ten replied. His voice was calmer than Hendery’s but his knuckles had turned white from the force with which he gripped the chair’s arms. He averted his eyes for a moment, staring at something a little over Hendery’s head. “Sicheng came to me one day, told me Kun hadn’t come back for dinner nor during the night. His car wasn’t in and he hadn’t picked up Sicheng’s calls so Sicheng was worried.”

“And what did you do?” Hendery asked. Ten stayed silent, his eyes still refusing to meet Hendery’s and a sense of dread started to fill Hendery’s mind. He leaned forward, trying to meet Ten’s eyes. “Ten? Ten,” he repeated, more firmly, his voice commanding enough that Ten’s eyes snapped to look at him. Hendery tried to ignore the guilt and regret that shone in them. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” was the gritted response, spoken through clenched teeth. 

There was a beat of silence before Hendery spoke with startled disbelief.

“Nothing?”

Ten stood up all of a sudden, running his left hand through his hair. He glared at Hendery, but the latter understood the anger that burnt in Ten’s eyes was not directed him, but rather at Ten himself.

“Nothing,” Ten repeated. “You know how this goes, Hendery. Kun hadn’t been gone long enough for me to be able to put a missing person alarm and for all we knew, Kun might be somewhere else and he just didn’t want to go home for whatever reason. I told Sicheng he had to wait a couple of days before we could do anything. Sicheng insisted and he was so worried that I accepted to look into it, but Kun’s phone was disconnected, his car was nowhere to be found and there were no signs to make us believe anything had happened to him.”

“You thought he had gone away willingly,” Hendery filled in the gaps for Ten.

“Kun and Sicheng had been having problems lately, everyone knew that,” Ten replied, suddenly appearing incredibly tired. “I thought that maybe he had decided to leave for a couple of days after a fight and that Sicheng felt guilty for it. I don’t know, Hendery, I don’t know why I thought that,” Ten burst out, even if Hendery hadn’t said a word.

But that was what guilt did to you, after all. It made you second guess your every thought and action, go over everything you had done and what you could have done it differently, eating you alive. Hendery could see just how much Ten was hurting. Some other time, he might have gotten up to hug him, offer him whatever words of comfort he could come up with. He itched with the need to do just that, but he knew that was something he couldn’t do.

“How did you know Kun and Sicheng were having problems if Sicheng didn’t tell you?”

“This is a small town full of gossips, Hendery,” Ten snorted. “Everyone knows everyone else’s secrets,” he replied.

It wasn’t untrue, that much Hendery knew, but he also remembered something else, something that Ten was purposefully ignoring just then, if the way he resolutely kept his eyes away from Hendery was anything to go by.

“What happened after that?” He finally decided to ask, trying to redirect the conversation in the hopes of distracting Ten, who let out a shaky breath once he heard the question.

“By the time it was obvious Kun wasn’t coming back, there wasn’t much I could do. We tried locating his car, to no luck, and the same with the phone. Nothing seemed to point out he had done anything other than go away willingly and I had my hands tied,” Ten turned to glance at Hendery, a soulless look in his eyes. “Sicheng used to come every day, but when he realized we were about to close the case, he called Jackson, and then he stopped coming altogether.”

“Did you think Jackson found anything?”

“I don’t know,” Ten let out in a huff as he say unceremoniously on the chair. “I used to think there was nothing to be found, that he was only bothering people. He was charming, Jackson, I didn’t speak much to him but I could tell that. I liked him, but he had a way to get people comfortable enough to talk, without even realizing what they were saying until it was too late. Maybe he managed to get something out from the wrong person and they decided to kill him, but I honestly don’t know.”

“Maybe,” Hendery replied, drumming his fingertips against the wooden surface of Ten’s table. “Maybe he found some lead on Kun’s whereabouts and someone decided they had to kill him to keep him quiet, but we still don’t know what he found, or whether Kun is alive or dead…”

“What do you think? Do you think he’s still alive?”

Hendery shook his head.

“I think it’s too early to tell, at least for me. What do you think?”

“I don’t know either but, after seeing what that person did to Jackson? I don’t know if I even want him to be alive,” was the too honest reply, his voice raw in a way it hadn’t been before.

Hendery could see what it had taken Ten to say that, the pain and grief obvious in the tense line of his jaw, in his grim expression. Inwardly, Hendery agreed. Maybe it would be better if Kun were dead, instead of suffering at the hands of the same person who’d killed Jackson.

“I want to see thw body,” Hendery said then, instead of voicing those thoughts.

Ten nodded and stood up.

“Come, I’ll drive you,” he said, tilting his head to the side to point at the door. Hendery hesitated for a fraction of a second, but Ten was looking, and he saw. His expression darkened, “you can’t possibly be serious.”

“My car is outside.”

“You don’t even know where the morgue is, just let me drive you this time. I swear you won’t die if you sit with me in the car until we get there.”

Without waiting for Hendery’s reply, Ten opened the door and left, leaving Hendery behind. Swearing softly under his breath, Hendery took off in his wake, ignoring the wide-eyed stares thrown his way, and jogged up to Ten.

“Everyone, get back to work!” Ten ordered with a sideways glance at Hendery, and all the cops turned around, pretending they weren’t fixated on their every move.

Ten lead him out towards his car without so much as a looking at him, much less talking to him, and Hendery let him do just that, the ride to the morgue a silent one. Every now and then Ten would sneak a look or two in Hendery’s direction, as if he wanted to say something, but changed his mind every time. 

That situation went on for the first fifteen minutes of the ride, until Ten, eyes still stuck on the road, finally broke the silence.

“What are you planning on doing once we’re done here?” He asked.

Slightly surprised, Hendery glanced at Ten for a moment, before replying.

“I want to talk to Sicheng. Not that I don’t trust your work,” he rushed to add, but Ten just hummed silently, as if that hadn’t crossed his mind, “but I’d just prefer to go talk to him, given all that’s happened.”

“I guessed that but we’ll have to go tomorrow,” Ten replied. At Hendery’s confused stare, he explained, “today marks three months since Kun went missing. Sicheng took their kids out to distract them. We could go look for them if you really want to speak to him but he’s been through a lot lately, first Kun and now this… I think he deserves a break, even if it’s just for today.”

Hendery stared at Ten’s profile as he drove and nodded to himself.

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Does he know you’re here?” Ten asked as they entered the morgue’s parking lot.

“He didn’t know when I arrived but he might do now,” Hendery replied, stepping down from the car.

The morgue was a new addition to the town, but Hendery didn’t have any trouble identifying it. Somehow, it looked like any other morgue he’d been to before, or maybe it was just a byproduct of spending so much in them, enough that it allowed him to identify them with just a look.

Ten fell into step beside him and, silently, guided him through the building. Hendery shivered. He wasn’t really cold, not yet, but it was almost as if his body was getting ready for the coldness that would greet them in the autopsy rooms.

A doctor, dressed in a white lab coat, was waiting for them in front of the room they were headed to. 

“Hendery, this is doctor Jung Jinsoul. Doctor, this is agent Huang Guanheng, from the Fringe division. He’s come to help us on the Wang case.”

The doctor, her dark hair neatly tied in a knot at the back of her head and fringe brushing her eyes, nodded as she welcomed then into the room.

“I hope you’ll be able to shed some light into this case. I had seen my fair share of weird and terrible deaths before I moved here but this…,” she shuddered, coming to a stop next to the autopsy table standing in the middle of the room. The shape of the body covered by a white sheet on top of it was unmistakable. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something as terrible.”

“Hopefully, this case will be your first and last,” he replied, gently. 

Doctor Jung looked up and smiled for a brief second, though it was gone as soon as it appeared.

“Brace yourself,” was the only warning Hendery received before the doctor pulled the sheet down, uncovering the corpse from the head down to its chest.

Despite the warning, Hendery still had to close his eyes, take a moment to breathe away the shock. That was one of those things he still hadn’t managed to get used to. No matter how many cases he took part in, being an agent in the Fringe division meant you faced the most gruesome murders and Jackson’s was no exception.

The former detective’s corpse was intact, except for the Y-shaped incisions on his chest from when the autopsy had been performed on him, the marks a violent red under the harsh light. Those were the only good news, for he now understood why Ten had requested assistance from the FBI and why he’d kept the case under wraps.

Jackson Wang’s face was gone.

And not gone as in taken away, but rather as if someone had taken a rubber and erased his features away, like they had been drawn on a piece of paper and the artist, not satisfied with their work, had decided to wipe it away.

Except, that wasn’t an accurate description, not when one took a closer look.

“What the hell happened to him?” Hendery asked, horror filtering into his voice. He had read Ten’s report, of course, but seeing it in the flesh? That was a complete different thing.

He crouched down to take a better look at what used to be a person, one whose identity had been completely erased. Jackson no longer had a face and even his ears looked only half-formed, completely smooth and flat against his head, no trace of the auditory canal to be even seen. His remains resembled more a mannequin than those of a person.

“I wish I could tell you,” the doctor replied. Her hands shook slightly and she hid them in her lab coat’s pockets, away from sight. “It seems as if he died due to lack of air, after his skin grew and sealed all orifices.”

“How is that even possible?” Ten whispered. 

Hendery glanced at him and found him staring at the body, his face as devoid of colour as the sheet that covered it.

“I don’t know. The only thing I can tell you is that something triggered an abnormal growth of his skin, causing it to cover not only his mouth, eyes and nose, but every orifice. I’d say he was doomed from the moment he got in touch with whatever that was,” doctor Jung continued.

“When did he die?” Hendery asked.

“I’d say a couple of hours before he was found. The rigor hadn’t set in yet, but the neck had begun to show signs of stiffening. The livor mortis suggests he was moved after being killed and between that, and the fact that we could find nothing in the scene that could point us to what was used to kill him, I’d say he was killed somewhere else, then moved to the side of the road.”

“Thank you,” Ten replied as Hendery noted everything down.

“I’d like to send photos and samples to our lab, if that is alright with you,” Hendery said, looking both at Ten and doctor Jung.

Once the two nodded their assent, Hendery took out his phone to take the photos.

“Have you seen anything like this before?” Ten asked. He was standing slightly behind Hendery, leaning down slightly to peer over his shoulder.

Hendery shook his head, carefully making sure the photos captured the reality of what had happened to Jackson.

“I haven’t, but that doesn’t really mean anything. The Fringe division has investigated many freak cases such as this one, and I’ve only been here for a handful of years, so maybe there’s something in our database that can help us,” straightening, Hendery looked at the doctor, “is there anything else?”

“No. I’m afraid that’s the only thing I managed to get, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ten and Hendery replied at the same time. Surprised, they shared a brief look, before Hendery cleared his throat, attracting doctor Jung’s eyes to him. “I’ll give you the address of our headquarters so that you can send them the samples.” Hendery quickly scribbled down a few lines on one of the notebook’s pages before ripping it and handing it to the doctor. “If that’s all, I would like to make a call.”

“You go first, I need to do some things here first,” Ten told him.

Nodding at Ten and doctor Jung, Hendery left the room and headed out. Pushing the front doors open, he dialed a phone number and brought the device to his ear, patiently waiting for the other person to pick up. He turned around the corner of the building, leaving the doors behind him.

“Wassup?” The deep voice on the other side greeted him, automatically bringing a smile to Hendery’s lips.

“Hey, man, how are things down there?”

“The usual, you know, too many things to do, too little time. How are things back home?” Hendery snorted, his lips twisting into a grimace, and said nothing. The person on the other side of the line whistled. “That bad?”

“That bad,” Hendery confirmed, leaning against the wall. He turned his face towards the Sun, basking in its warmth, hoping it would get rid of the cold that still clung to him. 

“It’ll get better.”

“You sound way too sure, Lucas,” Hendery replied, sighing tiredly.

“I know you can do this. Give yourself a break, you’ve only been there for, what? Forty-eight hours? Not even that. You just need to get used to it, regain your footing. You can do it. Worst case scenario, if you really can’t take it? You focus on the job, and it’ll give you something to ground you. You can do this, Hendery, I believe in you,” Lucas reassured him, his voice kind.

Hendery nodded, even if he knew Lucas couldn’t see him, but the conversation soothed something in him, a restless part of himself that had awoken the moment he set foot in the town. Talking to a friend allowed him to breathe a little easier, and he felt lighter than he had been just a couple of minutes before.

“Thank you, man, I needed that.”

“No problem, I’m always here for you, you know that,” Lucas replied, honestly bleeding from his words. “Now that that’s settled, why are you calling me? Because I doubt it was just to hear my sexy voice,” he said in a teasing voice, causing Hendery’s smile to widen even more.

“I wish it was because of that, but no, I’m sorry.”

“Pity,” Lucas tsked. “What do you need?”

“I’m going to send you some photos and samples from the victim’s body. I’d like to analyze them and see if they match anything we have in our system. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this but you know how it goes.”

“Yeah, sadly I do,” Lucas replied. “How’s the body?”

“Sealed up in its own skin, I’d say. The skin grew and covered the mouth and nose, he suffocated to death.”

“That’s a horrible way to go,” Lucas said, but something in his tone made Hendery frown.

“What is it?”

“There’s something about that, that sounds kinda familiar? I’ll have to check it up though, maybe it’s just a freaky coincidence.”

“There are no such things as ‘freaky coincidences’ in our line of job, Lucas,” Hendery replied and Lucas let out a laugh.

“Yeah, you’re right. Send me those pics and samples, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Do you need me to go down there?”

“I don’t think so,” Hendery answered after considering it for some seconds. “At least not yet, this is more urgent, and I need you to call me if you see something strange, but I’ll call you as soon as I need you, okay?” He continued, straightening as he heard Ten talking to someone, his voice close enough to mean he had left the building.

“Okay. I’ll send you the results as soon as I have them. Take care, you know what they told us, we don’t want this to get ugly. And, Hendery?” He paused and, when Hendery hummed to let him know he was listening, he continued. “If it gets too much, you know where to find me, you don’t have to do this alone.”

“Yeah, I know, Lucas, thank you,” he replied, just as Ten rounded the corner and started walking towards him. “I’ll call you back later,” he hung up at the same time Ten stopped by his side, mimicking his position as he leaned against the wall. “I talked to the people in my division, as soon as they have something on this case, I’ll let you know.”

“Great, thank you,” Ten said.

“Do you know of anyone who could have done something like this?” Hendery asked when it became apparent Ten wasn’t planning on saying anything.

“Honestly? No. The people in this town may be weird some times, but none of them have the skills or the imagination to come up with something like this and pull it off.”

“Well, someone did,” Hendery replied. “And if Jackson was looking into Kun’s disappearance, I highly doubt it was a stranger who did it.”

“Maybe,” Ten shrugged. “Or maybe Jackson pissed off the wrong person and they saw an opportunity to get rid of him without drawing attention to themselves. There were quite a number of unknown faces around here the weeks prior to the murder, after all” he suggested, but it was obvious he didn’t believe what he was saying. No, that wasn’t what had happened to Jackson, that much Hendery was sure of.

“Too much trouble, to follow him to this Godforsaken town just to kill him,” Hendery replied and Ten hummed his assent. 

After that, there wasn’t much to be said. Hendery still had a lot to process, and without the results or having even spoken to Sicheng, there wasn’t much he could do, other than put his thoughts in order. Ten seemed to be of the same opinion, as he stayed quiet, seemingly content with just standing there.

Silence stretched between them, one that would have been comfortable hadn’t it been for the looks that Ten sneaked on Hendery every now and then, when he thought the other wouldn’t notice. 

At first, Hendery ignored them, before they became too insistent, lingering on his face for a tad too long for his liking.

“Do you plan on staring at me the whole time I’m here?” Hendery asked with a sigh. Ten widened his eyes a fraction, as if he were to defend his innocence, but Hendery wasn’t having any of that. Maybe it was the corpse or just the fact that he was back, but he felt too on edge to deal with that with anymore subtlety. “Just spit it out, Ten, we might as well get this out in the open right now.”

Ten stared at him, openly that time, before turning his head to the side, briefly closing his eyes as he absentmindedly cracked his knuckles.

“You disappeared ten years ago without a word,” Ten finally said, the accusation obvious in his face and voice. Hendery arched an eyebrow. 

_There it was_. It had taken longer than he had expected.

“That’s _not_ how I remember it, Ten.”

“That’s how everyone remembers it,” Ten replied, eyes glued to Hendery’s face.

Snorting, Hendery smiled bitterly and rolled his neck, trying to get rid of the tension that was starting to build up there, a byproduct of him staying in WayV falls.

“Of course it is. Of course that’s how you all remember it,” he whispered, laying his head against the wall. He shouldn’t be surprised, and yet, he was.

It hadn’t even been two days and he already wished he hadn’t come back.

It wasn’t until he saw Ten’s worried expression that he realized he had said that aloud. Or maybe he hadn’t and Ten just hadn’t lost the ability to see right through him. It didn’t matter, not any longer. He was too tired to care about it. Maybe he had fooled himself into thinking things could ever change. Just because he had changed didn’t mean the rest had to, less of all a town that had never cared about others.

A cascade of memories washed over him and Hendery took a deep, slow breath, and tried to calm himself, to not let himself be buried under a past that belonged to a person he no longer recognized as himself.

“I can drive you back to the precinct,” Ten offered when the silence stretched for too long, a subtle peace offering, but Hendery shook his head. “Your car is back there, just let me take you. For old time’s sake?

“There’s no need,” he replied. “I’ll walk back, it might help me clear my mind.”

He could see it in Ten’s eyes that he wanted to push, make him accept his offer, but he also knew the second Ten realized that would be unwise. Ten sketched a smile, so bitter it was more a grimace than a smile, and he leaned against the wall, close enough to touch, but not quite, the small gap between them an unsurmountable rift.

Thrusting his hands through his hair, Ten turned his head slightly to the side, just enough to look at Hendery.

“What happened to us, Hendery? When did we go so wrong?” He asked, his tone pleading.

“You know what happened, Ten,” he replied, the pain in his voice obvious even to his own ears, but Ten didn’t seem to notice, not when he himself appeared to be drowning.

“Do I?” A humourless smile on his lips.

“Of course you do, Ten. Out of everyone else, I know for a fact you’re the one that know Lucas asked me to leave with him that night,” Hendery said, feeling the impatience bubbling up in him. Of all the scenarios he had come up with on the rare occasions he had thought of that particular reunion, the one he was living in was not one of them. It angered him, more than it should.

“And you did,” Ten mulled over the words, rolling them around in his mouth. “I heard you saying his name before, so you two are still in touch?”

“Yes”, he turned around and left. 

He didn’t tell Ten they were coworkers, friends, more brothers than lovers, Lucas coming by his house to drink and cry and celebrate. Let Ten get lost in his own head, ponder the implications of a simple word.

There was nothing left in him of the starry-eyed kid that had lived in that town. He had crumbled to dust when he fell from the skies, with only a gentle giant there to help him piece back together what little was left of him. 

Clenching his teeth, Hendery tried to push that away, be the person he had become, but some part of him still remembered the boy he had been, and he couldn’t resist. After all, Ten had always had an ability to bring out what was hidden deep within Hendery. Both the good, the bad and the ugly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for the delay, and I hope you've enjoyed this one. I'll try to come back soon!
> 
> [To crush and burn playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7EhxNG4t7h2RMXOEuJLe7O) || [tw](https://twitter.com/monstaruniverse) || [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Val_99)
> 
> \- Val

**Author's Note:**

> A short chapter to start this one but I hope it was enjoyable! I'm really sorry for Jackson, my poor baby (go check out Got7's comeback if you haven't, they've come back today and it's amazing) but I envisioned him as the PI since the first moment I thought of it so...  
> I hope you've enjoyed this and I'll try to publish the second one as soon as possible! Let me know what you thought of this one too if you want to ^^  
> Before I go I just wanted to tell you all something: thank you so much for reading my stories. Whether you are an old subscriber or a new, or someone who just read something of mine, I hope you know you guys keep me here, doing something that I loved but gave up for a long while. If I've lasted this long and keep coming back, it's because you guys read my stuff, no matter how dumb or niche or weird they may be, and that means the world to me, so, really, thank you so much <3333  
> I'll try to be back with the next one as soon as possible!  
> Comments and kudos warm my heart <33
> 
> [To crush and burn playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7EhxNG4t7h2RMXOEuJLe7O) || [tw](https://twitter.com/monstaruniverse) || [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Val_99)
> 
> \- Val


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